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Merciful Glory
Category:LDDD Panoply =Merciful Glory= (Artifact 4 Oricalcum Grand Daiklaive) Owned by Ceril Tesus Speed: 5 Accuracy: +3 Damage: +12L/4 Defense: +2 Rate: 2 Min STR 3 Attune 8 Cost: Artifact 3 Tags: 2, O, P, R Hearthstone Slots: 3 (Accuracy +1, Defense +2) Forged in the heart of the First Age, Merciful Glory was the solution to a Dawn-caste warrior's dilemma: He fell in love with his mortal enemy. She belonged to the Zenith Caste of the Solar Exalted, and they clashed over countless differences. Over centuries of mutual animosity, the reasons for the feud were lost, becoming background, history, and ultimately pointless, until all that was left was the rivalry; an intense connection that drew them together over clashing Oricalcum. Ultimately, their clashes grew more and more deadly, and as they intensity rose, it became difficult to stop a fight without one party or the other becoming dead. In the end, he was compelled to render the final blow onto her, or her next blow would have killed him. The warrior cried long and bitter over her body, and saw to her funeral arrangements personally; he buried her with the sword with which he had killed her, finding that unchecked valor had no longer any place in his heart. The warrior gathered Oricalcum and fire to his side, and quested long, guided by only his instincts and internal compass, for just the right objects; he forsook his lands, handing them over to another, and lived for a time as a wanderer, the only place still his own the workshop he had compelled to be constructed near her final resting place. Two centuries later, he returned to that place, and began to construct another sword. Hammer rang, and Oricalcum sang, and over many months of careful work, drinking from a stream and eating only fruits that grew on trees nearby, working by day in the sunlit workshop and sleeping by night on a cot in her tomb, he made the sword. A Grand Daiklaive, it's edge as keen as any, with an elegant array of bars with which to catch the blade of another, and bearing five magical sockets in the base of the blade. Merciful Glory was constructed in the workshop, but completed in her tomb, where he allowed it to rest for the night with him on the day the blade was finished. In the morning, the sword glowed brightly, and he smiled. Merciful Glory was designed so that it would never have to kill; the wielder can fight with his full strength and valor, sweeping enemies aside, but no matter how harsh the final blow, if the wielder does not wish them dead, they will survive. It's true power, however, lies in the spirit of their conflict, and the end it should have had; when Merciful Glory spares someone's life, the wielder may spend a point of temporary willpower. This causes an unnatural mental affect, generating the seed of a positive intimacy towards it's wielder in the target; this intimacy may be resisted as normal, but each cumulative time the weapon is used to to defeat the same opponent, the cost of resistance goes up by one point of temporary willpower. Eventually, resisting it will be impossible. This power is not without it's limitation; the battle must be a genuine one, fully engaged in by both parties. If one party is not fighting to the best of their ability; such as if they are dependent upon a weapon which has been stolen from them before the fight, or they have been tied up and are merely being smacked around by the wielder of the blade, this effect cannot take place. It takes advantage of the duality of love and hate being the same emotion viewed from two different angles. It cannot be abused to force someone to think positively of the wielder in a short time, by beating them up repeatedly while they are at the wielder's mercy. Furthermore, using Merciful Glory to spare someone's life and make them think positively towards the wielder generates a strong intimacy towards the person they defeated with it; this is a natural reaction to attempting to use the sword to create a friend from an enemy. This intimacy will not interfere with pursuing goals which may be counter to the other's – by nature, you are enemies, even if the wielder is trying to change that – but it is just as intense as any other intimacy towards that person, compelling the wielder to act to protect that person if necessary. If the wielder's intimacy towards a given mutual opponent is ever violated (such as by allowing a third party to attack that person without intervening), any cumulative progress made in overcoming that person's hatred is forfeit. The intimacy towards your rival may not be resisted, and the only way to stop it's formation is not to attempt to use Merciful Glory to build a relationship with your rival. Merciful Glory may always choose to spare a life, whether or not a rival-relationship is attempted.